Investigating Power
Last year, 46% of the utility’s generation came from coal units, according to the latest data available. Mollie Gore, a Santee Cooper spokesperson, told Utility Dive’s Walton that they aim to increase solar capacity and add battery storage. Citing SourceWatch, Walton noted that Winyah is a 1,260-MW facility.
Bradley Files, Climate, Environment
Another leading funder of the John Locke Foundation is the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, one of the nation’s largest conservative grantmakers and a major funder of climate denial. According to Sourcewatch.org, between 2015 and 2017 the Bradley Foundation contributed $1.5 million to the John Locke Foundation and the John William Pope Civitas Institute, another conservative think tank in North Carolina founded and funded by Art Pope.
In 2017, Pope was elected chair of the Bradley Foundation. The following year, a Center for Media and Democracy investigation showed that the foundation has been involved in “a concerted effort … to delegitimize climate science, while promoting fossil fuel energy development in the United States.”
One of the gerrymandering workshop leaders was Heritage Foundation fellow Hans Von Spakovsky, who, according to the Center for Media and Democracy, urged legislators to use citizen voting age population data for redistricting, leaving non-citizens and young people out of the map-drawing process. Spakovsky said at the session that his plan “may give an advantage to Republican legislators.”
The main thesis of the JS story on Wisconsin Examiner is that it is a “left-wing” response to right-wing sites like the MacIver Institute. But MacIver was started as a think tank, not a news site. And when it did do journalism, its methods could be questionable, as Sourcewatch has noted: In 2009 MacIver operative Bill Osmulski was charged with obtaining interviews with two elected Wisconsin officials under false pretenses. The MacIver Institute falsely claimed the state Government Accountability Board would deem recall signatures from “Mickey Mouse” or “Hitler” to be valid when counting signatures in the recall effort against then-governor Scott Walker.
CEA is a registered 501(c)(4) nonprofit that describes itself as an advocate for “sensible energy policies for all consumers,” but its members include dozens of fossil fuel, agriculture and manufacturing companies. The nonprofit Center for Media and Democracy identifies CEA as an industry front group. It has been accused multiple times of faking support for energy projects.
CEA is a registered 501(c)(4) nonprofit that describes itself as an advocate for “sensible energy policies for all consumers,” but its members include dozens of fossil fuel, agriculture and manufacturing companies. The nonprofit Center for Media and Democracy identifies CEA as an industry front group. It has been accused multiple times of faking support for energy projects.
Among other groups accepting Koch money was the Thomas Jefferson Institute of Public Policy, a Northern Virginia-based free market think tank, according to the left-leaning group Sourcewatch. The institute once sponsored this blog.
It had been common practice for Assembly Speaker Robin Vos to deny press credentials to the Center for Media and Democracy which, like the MacIver Institute, covers state politics, only from a more liberal view. CMD has unearthed several “scoops” in recent years, including the cozy relationship between Wisconsin conservative legislators and the infamous American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) and how they conspired on legislation.
They also have funded the American Legislative Exchange Council, known by the acronym ALEC, a conservative group that drafts model legislation for states with the goals of cutting taxes, opposing gun restrictions, weakening labor unions, and repealing regulations on business. In addition, ALEC has drafted many laws criminalizing HIV exposure and, at least in its early years, strongly opposed LGBTQ equality. Recently it has teamed up with the anti-LGBTQ Alliance Defending Freedom to promote legislation that supposedly supports free speech on college campuses but would provide no protections for those who demonstrate against campus speakers, according to the Center for Media and Democracy.
The Institute disingenuously calls itself “impartial and unbiased” on its About web page, but also attributes to “free markets” all manner of progress. SourceWatch reveals that the Institute is founded by the Koch brothers, has a president who was formerly an executive with Enron and is tied to the Koch brothers’ infamous American Legislative Exchange Council, an organization that literally writes extreme Right bills for state legislatures.